Munch used the rest room and noticed that the tiny hole by the toilet paper dispenser had been filled in with epoxy. Things would be getting back to normal soon.
At ten o'clock Lou came out to the back room. Munch was replacing the timing belt on a Volkswagen Scirocco.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"Getting there," she said.
"You know, if you wanted to take a few days off . . ."
"And what?"
"I don"t know. Relax a little."
"I relax better when I know my bills are getting paid. But thanks. I did want to run an errand later."
"Take all the time you need," he said.
She finished the Volkswagen first. Called the woman who owned it to let her know it was ready and then flipped through Lou's Rolodex until she found Ken Wilson's business card. She dialed his number. His secretary put the call through when Munch identified herself.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"I wanted to talk to you about buying some stock," she said.
"Can I stop by?"
"Sure."
The first level of the underground parking lot was all reserved parking and full. Munch continued down the tight circular driveway to the lower level, noting the black scrape marks on the walls from other drivers' miscalculations. She found a slot in the center row and headed for the bank of elevators. After pushing the elevator button, she studied the building roster. Smith Barney was on the fifth floor. Logan Sarnoff's firm was on the eighth. Her elevator arrived. A minute later she was at Ken Wilson's door. The brokerage office reminded Munch of a detectives' bull pen. Essentially it was one large room divided into cubicles with desks, phones, and ticker tape monitors. A young woman sat behind the reception desk.
Ken came out from the back. He looked paler and thinner under the fluorescent lights. Munch followed him to his desk.
"Is there any stock in particular that you're interested in?" he asked.
"California Recycling," she said. "The Nasdaq symbol is CARC."
His hand went to the knot at his throat. He loosened his tie before speaking. "How many shares do you want to buy?"
"I understand that the stock took a big drop a few weeks ago, right after one hundred thousand shares changed hands. Do you know anything about that?"
Ken cleared his throat. "I read the article in the Journal last week."
"Can you explain it to me?"
"Earlier this month, an investor acting on an erroneous inside tip bought the large block of CARC stock. After the transaction went through, the news broke that the company had failed to land a government contract and the CEO had resigned. The value of the stock dropped when the news hit. That's not to say it won't recover. This is a good time to buy."
"But meanwhile," Munch said, "somebody's client lost two point three million dollars, plus commissions."
"Hardly the broker's fault," Wilson said. He looked as if he were going to be ill.
She met his eye and said, "Sarnoff is telling the story differently. He says that he bought the stock on his broker's recommendation. On your recommendation."
"That's bullshit. He came to me and he knows it."
"And what about Diane Bergman? What did she know?"
"I think you'd better leave now," Wilson said. He picked up his phone. She understood this gesture as some implied threat. It didn't matter. She'd gotten what she came for.
She walked out to the hall and pushed the elevator down button. The car on the left arrived first. Its doors opened with a ding. She stepped inside and pushed the button marked G2. Moments later she stepped out into the dark, quiet parking lot. She was heading for her car when she heard another ding and the doors of the second elevator opened. Instinct made her turn, but she wasn't particularly surprised to see who stepped out.
Sarnoff's face was flushed. His fists clenched, arms bent slightly at the elbow. "What kind of game are you playing?" he asked. Spittle flew as he spoke.
"No game," she said, backing away from him.
"I don't need any more shit," he said, advancing. His eyes were open wide. She could see the white all around his irises.
"Did Diane find out what you had done? Is that what happened?"
"Of course she knew," he said. "Every investment I made had her approval. But here's the thing"—his eyes were glittering, even in the dim light—"everybody approves when you're making twice the going rate. Nobody remembers that that means twice the risks."
"That must have really pissed you off," she said. Her hip bumped into the hood of the car behind her. To her right was a concrete wall. He blocked her exit to the left. "Was that why she had to die? Was she going to blame you?"
"You're crazy" he said. "And you're a liar. I'll prove it. I'll discredit you."
Munch sidestepped across the front of the car, which she now saw was a Jaguar. "You had to know your luck would run out eventually" she said to him, desperately trying to form a plan while she thought out loud. "You've been pretty lucky for a while now, haven't you? You lose a large sum of the Bergmans' money and then Diane meets her tragic fate. No one left to ask where the money went. Pretty great timing for you."
He glanced around him as he reached inside his coat. "Shut up now," he said, licking his lips, "before you go too far. I'm warning you."
Munch ran her hands behind her, feeling the smooth finish of the car. She came to the door handle and tried it, but it was locked. "How about the photographs you let St. John find? Did you plant them or was that just luck again?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
She looked him in the eye. "I saw the pictures of her body. You staged it so carefully to give the suggestion of sexual assault. And those burns all over her body? How could you do that to her?"
A pained expression crossed his face. At least he had a tiny shred of conscience left.
"She was already dead by then," he said, in a strained, barely audible voice. "She didn't suffer."
"Oh," she answered, feeling no sense of relief at his admission. He was still a killer.
When he looked at her again, his eyes were much older, sadder. He pulled out his hand from inside his coat and showed Munch that he had a pistol. "We're going to take a drive," he said. "You don't have to worry. I'm not going to hurt you."
Mace St. John had told her more than once never to go anywhere with a bad guy that it was better to scream and shout and take your chances while you were still somewhere where you could be heard. Bad guys didn't drive you somewhere so they could let you go. They drove you to deserted stretches of national forest land where nobody would see them dump your body and they always lied when they said they weren't going to hurt you. St. John had also told her that if she ever found herself in a one-on-one situation with a mugger or a rapist that she was better off yelling "Fire!" than "Help!"
She glanced over her shoulder and saw that a small LED light glowed on the dashboard of the Jaguar. This told her two things. One: it had an alarm. And two: the system was armed. She squinted her eyes against the pain and then threw her body against the side of the car. The alarm's motion detector did its job. The air around them filled with a shrill, pulsating siren.
Sarnoff jumped back. She darted past him. The Jaguar alarm echoed off the concrete walls. She picked up a chunk of concrete, lying there broken beside a parking bumper, and threw it with all her might at his head. He raised the arm holding the gun to protect his face. The hunk of rock bounced off his arm. His gun went flying and crashed into the passenger window of a white 38o SEL. The Mercedes's tempered glass exploded in a shower of glittering shards. The loud pop of the breaking glass was followed immediately by a high-decibel air horn that began to blast at one-second intervals.
Munch darted for the driveway. She pulled the small pocket screwdriver from her shirt pocket as she ran. If he managed to catch her, he'd learn new meanings of the word uncooperative. The clamor in the garage was terrible. She felt disoriented, deprived of one of her senses, and hoped it was affec
ting him in the same way. Her body felt weightless as her legs pumped beneath her. If he was behind her, she would never know it. It was too dark for shadows, and looking back would only slow her down.
She sprinted up the exit ramp. There was a concave mirror mounted at the curve of the driveway leading to the next tier of parking. A reflected movement caught her attention. A flash of red and chrome. She realized it was the front end of a car and it was headed their way. The cacophony of alarm horns masked its screeching tires.
A strong hand clutched her arm. She tried to spin out of the grip, but it held fast. Her legs kicked out in front of her. Her head snapped back. She turned to face Sarnoff. The screwdriver with its puny four-inch shaft led her hand. She slashed his cheek. His mouth opened to emit a cry A cry that was lost amid the clamor of alarms. He looked down at the blood dripping from his face in amazement. Munch took the opportunity to jump back and away from him. She flattened her body against the wall just as the front end of a red Mercedes emerged from the top of the driveway.
Smoke surged from the tires as the horrified valet parking attendant tried desperately to avoid hitting Sarnoff, who was standing in the middle of its path. The car slowed, fishtailed, and then rammed into Sarnoff. His body flew back, coming to rest facedown on the cold concrete.
The parking attendant threw the Mercedes into park and rushed to Sarnoff's side. The attorney was still conscious. His right leg bent outward at an obscene angle. Blood soaked his suit. Munch walked up the parking ramp, away from the noise and the blood. Other people ran past her, too, drawn to the mayhem. She shrugged off their shouted questions and kept walking until she reached the lobby The security guard on duty let her use the phone. She called the West Los Angeles police station. A recording told her that if this was an emergency she should hang up and call 911. She stayed on the line until an operator answered.
"I need to speak to whoever's in charge," she said.
"What is this regarding?" the man asked.
"An ongoing murder investigation," she said.
"Have you spoken to a detective yet? What is the name of the victim in the case?"
"The detective is not available," she said. "I'd like to speak to the guy in charge. The lieutenant or the captain. Somebody like that. "
"Can I get your name and number?"
"I'm a good friend of Mace St. John," she said. The door of the lobby opened and the sound of the blaring alarms filtered into the room. "And this is urgent." To punctuate her words an ambulance arrived with its siren whooping. Munch held the phone out in the direction of the noise.
"Please hold."
Munch waited ten seconds and then a man's voice came on the line. "This is Lieutenant Graziano."
Munch told him her name, where she was, and what had happened. "Sarnoff made it look like Diane was attacked by Pauley the rapist you arrested on Saturday. Sarnoff knew enough to dress Diane in a negligee and to electrocute her. He even knew about the pictures of the victims. Sounds to me like he had some insider knowledge of Robin Davies's case. My bet is his source of information was Pete Owen."
"Where's Sarnoff now?"
"They're taking him to the hospital."
"I want you to stay put," Graziano said. "I'll make sure an officer is assigned to you."
"What are you going to do about Pete Owen?"
"I'll be having a word with him myself," Graziano said. "Don't worry We'll get to the bottom of this."
"I'm sure we all want the same thing," Munch said.
Epilogue
Ten days after his admittance to the hospital, St. John was released. Dr. Krueger gave him strict orders to quit smoking and cut down on stress. Caroline came to pick him up at ten in the morning. He insisted on driving home.
"I talked to the lieutenant this morning," he said when they came to a traffic light.
"What did he say?"
"Oh, you know, the usual bullshit. Get well soon. Don't worry."
Caroline nodded, looked out the window.
"I'm not quitting," he told her.
"Cigars or the job?" she asked.
"I can live without the smokes."
"Glad to hear it." She didn't seem surprised or even disappointed by his announcement. "What else did you two talk about?"
"The D.A. filed murder one on Sarnoff. Owen received a reprimand for having a big mouth. I don't think he's losing any sleep over it."
"So he wasn't involved?"
"Nah, just stupid. I have several witnesses who confirm that he was revealing details of his cases at the party he worked for the Bergman Cancer Center. Robin Davies's rape was one of these. He redeemed himself somewhat. He served a search warrant on the Bergman Cancer Center and pieced together a scenario that the D.A.'s happy with. We even located the victim's missing Honda in one of the permit-only parking structures. Her purse was under the seat with money still in the wallet."
"What do they believe happened?"
"Sarnoff and Diane Bergman went over to or met at the Bergman Cancer Center at UCLA on Saturday morning. The facility is not up and running to full capacity yet, so they would have had the place to themselves. She confronted him about the millions of dollars that the foundation trust lost because of the CARC stock fiasco. It was downstairs, in the diagnostic lab, that he killed Diane, but not by electrocuting her. The coroner reexamined the body. We had already ruled out blunt trauma. The tox report came back clean. Her hyoid arch was intact and there were no petechiae evident. Both of these would be symptoms usually associated with strangulation. "
"Petechiae. Those are the small broken veins in the eyes?"
"Exactly"
"So how was she killed?"
"Sugarman found some bruising around her lips and nose consistent with a forced closure of her mouth and nose."
"So he smothered her to death."
"Right, he probably used a plastic bag and then put her body in cold storage until he could carry out the rest of his plan. She couldn't just disappear. He needed her death confirmed or her money would be tied up for years. Owen had told Sarnoff about the rape he was investigating, how the rapist dressed his victim in a negligee and used electricity to subdue her. Owen also mentioned the victim's spread in Penthouse prior to her assault. All of this, it turned out, inspired Sarnoff to set up his scenario. You see, he'd been to Sam Bergman's safety deposit box to retrieve the man's burial instructions and he knew Sam kept the nude Polaroids of his wife there. It was a setup waiting to happen.
"On Saturday afternoon, Sarnoff went to Diane's house, brought in her mail, played the messages on her answering machine, even posted some letters she had ready to go on her desk and generally made it look like she had been there. Another misdirection so he could establish an alibi for Sunday. Then very late on Sunday night, he returned to the still unopened lab. Remember, this place is also a teaching facility. It even has its own morgue full of study cadavers. Good place to stash a body while you figure out a way to dispose of it."
"Wasn't he taking a chance someone might see her and recognize she wasn't one of the regulars?"
"He stuffed her in a body bag. One of his mistakes was leaving her in the clothes she died in. Cold storage retards decomposition, but a certain amount of rigor mortis sets in immediately We found impressions on the body made from panty hose and the label of the suit jacket she was wearing at the actual time of death."
Caroline clucked her tongue in disapproval. St. John continued. "Sarnoff rigged up some kind of apparatus with the two-twenty outlet in one of the treatment rooms. There's all kinds of equipment there including a portable X-ray machine that operates off two-twenty volts Sarnoff dressed Diane in a negligee and zapped her corpse with enough voltage to disguise or at least make us not look for any other cause of death, then dumped her body where it would be found Monday morning."
"Will they be able to make the case stick?" she asked.
"Yeah, I think so. SID went over the Cancer Center morgue and exam room with a fine-tooth comb. We have lots of phys
ical evidence, and thanks to Munch we've put together motive."
Caroline nodded. Juries loved motives.
St. John chuckled. "Sarnoff's also going to have a hard time explaining how his fingerprints got on the inside pages of Diane's gas bill that arrived in Saturday's mail."
"And who thought to fingerprint the mail?" she asked.
He tipped his head to one side in modest acknowledgment.
"Owen's running a check now on any lawsuit Sarnoff might have argued involving electrocution. You know, like a workmen's comp claim or wrongful death. Something like that. Wouldn't hurt our case to show he had some in-depth knowledge of the subject matter. "
"Speaking of priors," Caroline said. She adjusted the air-conditioning and then turned to face her husband. "I talked to Munch this morning and told her they were letting you out today,"
"What did she say?" he asked.
Caroline arched her eyebrows but kept her tone deceptively light. "Oh, you know, she sent you her love."
St. John wisely made no reply other than to look straight ahead. Across the seat, their two hands found each other.
Acknowledgments
First I need to thank a few special friends, beginning with the incomparable Patrick Millikin of Poisoned Pen Book Store for his guidance, friendship, and encouragement. Others who helped me early on in the process were my good friends and skilled readers Marie Reindorp, Kathleen Tumpane, and mystery buff extraordinaire Lou Boxer, M.D.
For assistance on the medical details:
Larry Shore, M.D., my brother the doctor, who walked me through the heart attack and many other crises; Dr. Joe Cohen, Chief Forensic Pathologist of Riverside County; Dr. Douglas Lyle for certain gory details.
Other choice bits of information were provided by Jack Kemp of Jack Kemp Enterprises, distributor of laryngectomy patient products; investment specialist Dave Shore; broker and friend Ken Hansen; and Ken Jonsson for the bit about the 22ov; and Steve Ricketts, my communications expert.
Unfinished Business - Barbara Seranella Page 21
